I always thought I had an intense irrational fear of elevators. Every time I get in one, my heart races. This comes from way too many times getting stuck in an elevator, combined with my fear of heights and the falling sensation.

That being said. I met my match today. Let me play this out for you.

I walk onto the elevator, hit my floor. There’s already a lady on the elevator. She looks disgruntled, because just as I was walking onto the elevator the doors were beginning to close, so I caused them to pop back open. The doors close quickly after though, and we start to go up. Then there’s a little thud somewhere in the shaft, and of course my mind goes wild, thinking this is it, I’m going to die, the elevator is going to fall from its place in the shaft, and even though we’re only probably 3 flights up at this point, I’m going to die. However, I don’t move a muscle, don’t make a sound, because I know that’s an extremely irrational thought. The other lady however, beat me to it.

She looked at me, eyes wild and said, “oh my god. Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” I responded. Did my face give me away, did I look scared, is that why she was reacting so wildly. No, I think to myself, that can’t be it.
“The elevator just exploded.”
Ok. I may have had irrational thoughts, but never in a thousand years would those words have ever come out of my mouth.

“If it had exploded, wouldn’t we be dead?” I ask cautiously, trying hard not to look at her like she’s a complete idiot, but probably failing miserably.
“Oh, that’s so hollywood. They want you to think that don’t they?”

Thank goodness the elevator doors opened right then and there, and I could walk off… Lady, you’re insane.

You know the feeling. You really have to go, you walk into a public restroom somewhere, knowing that you’re going to either stink up the entire bathroom or make sounds that probably shouldn’t be allowed in public… That being said, this blog post is not to make anyone feel bad about pooping in public. It’s about trying to cover up a completely natural thing.

I went to the bathroom, one stall was occupied, and being the polite person I am, I went to the one 2 stalls away, giving space between us. Then I hear it… A deep cough, a sneeze, a sniffle, ten million other bodily noises in order to cover up the sound of what she considered to be worse than all of those combined.

Just let it out darling. You don’t need to have an aneurysm pretending to cough or blow your nose. We all know what you’re doing in there…

NYC is full of tourists. You can’t avoid them. Now that I work a block from Herald Square, a block down from the Empire State Building, a block from Penn station, and above the Manhattan Mall, I definitely get to see a very large percentage of them. However, the ones I saw today made me giggle. Two tourists, both with an iPad out, and the maps application up and running, walked past me, pointing towards Penn Station. And these words popped out of the guy’s mouth.

“We’re on the right street (33), it’s just a block down here.”
“Are you sure? I feel like we’d see it.”
“Nah, it’s hard to see the Empire State Building because of all the other buildings, plus you can see Madison Square Garden there, it’s just beyond that.”

First of all, if they turned around for one moment, and looked behind them, they would see the Empire State building.
Secondly, it is somewhat behind Madison Square Garden, but that’s if you’re walking east from 9th avenue.
Thirdly, you have all this high tech gadgetry at your fingertips, and you’re still lost.

Seems like even the tourists who think they’re too cool for actual maps are doomed to be lost in NYC. I wonder how long they’ll last before they realize they’re at the Lincoln tunnel and being mugged for their iPads.

It’s been a while since I’ve written in this thing. So after a few observations today, I figured I’d start it back up again.

Talking to yourself

It’s not just for crazy people… Or is it? Elevators can be scary, tricky places where you stand awkwardly next to someone you may or may not know, and don’t say a word as your eyes stare blankly at the doors in front of you hoping that it doesn’t get stuck. Of course, if you’re being awkward behind someone, the person in front has no idea what you’re doing… That is unless the elevator is made of a soft mirror… Yes, that’s right creepy dude who was standing behind me… I saw you staring up and down my body and talking under your breath. Maybe if you’re going to be creepy, you shouldn’t do it where I can see you in a mirror.

It’s not a miracle, it’s disney.

Overheard as I walked back to work today.
Kid: “I want to go to Disney Land.”
Mom: “Ok, it’s just over there on 34th street.”
*headdesk*

I work in a kind of infamous building. It’s called the Daily News Building. The only reason why anyone may know what it is is because of a little movie called “Superman”. That’s right… I work at the Daily Planet. Anyways. Because of that, we have a lot of security downstairs, and some of them are friendly, some are rude, and some are just plain odd… There’s new guy though… and as I was swiping in to go through the turnstyle, heading back upstairs with my essential “it’s been a long day” afternoon coffee, one of the security “bouncer” guys, said to me. “Enjoy!”

It completely threw me off guard. I stopped looked at him, and cocked my head to the side.
“I’m going back upstairs to work… do you mean enjoy that, or the coffee in my hand?” I asked him.
“Oh, I thought you were a tourist,” he replied, and half-smiled awkwardly.
“Oh? We have tourists?” I asked back as I finished finally walking through the turnstile.
“Well, yeah… over there,” he said, and pointed out a couple of tourists who were in fact milling around the giant globe that’s in the lobby. “But I guess they don’t go upstairs…” He was looking very contemplative at that point, so I just grinned and let out a confused laugh.
“Not unless there’s some ride somewhere in this building I don’t know about… maybe like a superman ride?” I responded… now trapped in this ridiculous conversation.
“Why would there be a superman ride?”
“Because that’s why people come in here… It’s like a landmark from the movie superman,” I responded, now desperately trying to figure out an escape route. I had things to do upstairs, my coffee was sitting limp in my hand, and I could feel the wonderful warm weight, and all I wanted to do was inject the caffeine into my system as quickly as possible.
“Really?” He responded. Oh no, I was trapped… My head spun… I tripped over my thoughts, and finally I figured go with my best bet, put the coffee up to my mouth, took a sip, and nodded… He seemed to think that was enough, and he grinned back at me, and then said…”Enjoy!”